Kiddie Games with a Lesson: 7 Fun Ways to Aid Your Child’s Learning

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Children aren’t known for having the longest attention spans. Perhaps the only thing that keeps them occupied for long hours are their games and toys. Make that your weapon! Use playtime to impart knowledge and boring as that sounds, it really isn’t. In fact, kids tend to retain more information when it is presented in an engaging, interactive and creative manner. So here’s how you can turn some of your child’s favourite games into playtimes lessons.

Word-Based Connect Four Game

Much like Legos, slap on some words to the chips in your game-set. The challenge now is to make a meaningful four-word sentence to gain points. Sounds challenging, right? Perhaps it’s more suitable for older kids.

Match-the-Time

Use some eggs/egg shells to ensure your kid perfects the art of time-telling. Draw clock shapes with different time on halved eggs. They need to be matched with the other egg half having the exact same time-reading written on it. Match the timings to get a treat!

iPhone Games and Life Lessons

The iPhone game Dots is great for teaching kids important life lessons. In the game, you often need to banish dots of different colours to form a monochromatic, point-winning square. Moral of the game: to earn rewards in one specific domain, you often have to tackle problems in other domains. Find such teachings in all games and they’ll make a lasting impression on your kid for sure!

Lego-Math-Lessons

This just may be the best way to teach a kid – fractions. Use Lego blocks to explain concepts like wholes, halves and other fractions with visual iteration. The possibilities are endless, and a child is more likely to understand this way than with a boring black blackboard.

Whack-a-Word

Change the classic Whack-a-Mole to an action-packed vocabulary/grammar/word-recognition game. You could call out words/meanings/synonyms and ask kids to whack the appropriate placard to score points. The first to go a-whacking and correctly too wins!

Oobleck Experiment

If you want to get experimental and fancy, try the Oobleck Experiment. Not only will your kid learn how to make this non-Newtonian fluid, you can also throw in some info on physics to make the child understand the phenomenon better. Best part is, even you can have some messy fun with this strange kind of goo!